Notes From The Metro

Short stories by Cecilia Lovos. English/Español. My Writing

[muppetebbtide]

Just reread Gideon the Ninth feeling cool about it and normal

[notesfromthemetro]

[visualobscurity]

Woman Frightened by a String, 1929. Paul Nougé.

[at-thezenith]

i think a lot of writers including me need to embrace the fact that sometimes your work is recognisably influenced by something and that's not a bad thing! i took the scent of magic from holly webb's rose series, my worldbuilding is inspired by leigh bardugo's six of crows, phillip pullman played a huge part in inspiring me to write grand, sweeping arcs like in his dark materials, tolkien made me want to write about travellers journeying across treacherous land, the list goes on and on and on. and i hope that people can see some influences in my work, that means i'm doing it well! and they stretch all the way back to when i was a tween just getting into fantasy and "grown up" books. would love to hear about who has inspired other people's writing: if you write gothic, what books have you infused your work with? fellow fantasy writers, what have you borrowed and tweaked from?

[notesfromthemetro]

This! None of us are writing in a vacuum. We're the sum of our life experiences and the art, music, movies, books, fics, shows, videogames, Youtube videos we've chosen to bring into our lives.

Personally, I write mostly magic realism/speculative fiction, but to be really honest, I don't read as much speculative fiction as I feel I should. I grew up on a steady diet of Latin American Boom, Spanish post-war lit, and European classic lit. These influences have a massive effect on the work I do today, even after branching out a bit to American sci-fi/speculative fiction in the last couple of years.

[derangedrhythms]

John Clare, The New Faber Book of Love Poems; from ‘Song’, ed. James Fenton

[newretronet]

Visit NewRetro.Net for A journey to the Past  - Hashtags: #1984 #synthwave #retrowave #synth #cyberpunk #1980 #newretrowave #retrofuture #retroart #outrun #bladerunner #retroscifi #cyberart #retroaesthetic #newretro #newretronet #scifidaily #scififantasy #cyber #80s #retro #newwave #miami #purple #pink #vaporwave #devianart

[notesfromthemetro]

The revision of my old material is not progressing as I expected. As I mentioned before, a lot of my old stories don't really vibe with what I'm trying to do right now. My big question at the moment is what to share on Substack and what to save for a book. What kind of book do I want to write? What would set apart my book from everything I post online?

When I started planning for a book, I thought all I had to do was look into my archives, chose a couple dozen stories, revise them, send them to an editor, and voilà! But it looks like I have to start from scratch. It's exciting, but it's going to take a lot longer than I expected.

Who knows? Maybe some of those stories will end up in a book one day, with major revisions. But in the meantime, I'd rather focus on creating new stories that resonate with the ideas I'm interested in right now.

[obsessedbyneon]

Design for a square, by Piers Smerin (UK). 1985

Scan

[dailykafka]

— September 3, 1911 / Franz Kafka diaries

[notesfromthemetro]

Notes from the metro | Cecilia Lovos | Substack

Short stories about being human in possible futures and far away places. Updated every Wednesday. Click to read Notes from the metro, by Cec

Did you know I send out a free newsletter with a brand new short story every week? If you enjoy work from authors like Ursula K Le Guin or movies like Her, then my work's right up your alley.

Subscribe for free today ❤️

[notesfromthemetro]

DNF’d any books lately?

I’m curious — What makes you quit reading a book?

I've been slowly getting through the Dune series, but the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune, has really failed to grab my attention the way the previous books did.

The story takes place 3,500 years after the events of the previous book, so obviously, it introduces several new characters (with one exception.) My main issue with this book is that so far it's not given me a reason to care about these new characters, nor shown what the stakes or their motivations are.

I may just need a bit of a breather, but in the meantime, I started reading Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, which feels like a breath of fresh air.

What about you? DNF’d any books lately?

[fatimazainab]

Mahmoud Darwish

[ad-wills]

when you've meticulously envisioned the story in your head scene by scene but it's time to actually write it

[leefi]

[gay-impressionist]

If you are silent about your pain they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it - Zora Neale Hurston

[staticsable]

This is one of those posts where I feel like I'm doing others and myself a disservice by not sharing. I wish someone had shown me this a long time ago.

Maybe I'd be having to do less work to break out of this shell, now.

[squarebracket-trickster]

You can analyze your favourite writers' techniques. You all know that right?

When you read a book or fic or whatever and are blown away by how amazing the writing is you can just go, "huh, how is the writer doing this? what things are they doing to get this affect?"

And if you can't figure it out you are allowed to google it. Check out YouTube videos, blog posts, and the wealth of posts on Tumblr even. If the writer is famous enough there might even be full-length academic papers on Google Scholar or JSTOR, or even 100+ page published books dissecting their style (Tolkien, for example, if you like his style). If you still can't find the information, ask someone. Ask more experienced writers or writers who write in a similar style. Ask writing advice blogs/channels. Ask the writer/author themselves.

And if you still can't figure it out, you can keep trying things and reading similar stuff, observing until it clicks.

I just say this because, well, reading someone else's writing and feeling like yours is horrible in comparison is pretty much a universal writer experience. I see a lot a posts on Tumblr offering encouragement like, "it is okay if you writing isn't like theirs, you just have different strengths," and "actually your writing is better than you think it is, you've just been staring at it too long." And these are valid.

But also, just because you can't write like that now doesn't mean you can't learn. You don't have to resign yourself to a particular style just because it comes easier to you. It is completely okay to be happy with the style you have, but it is also okay to not be happy with it and wish you could write like your favourite writers instead.

Just... when you get that, "oh my gosh, I will never be as good as them," feeling, maybe try figuring out what it is they are doing that you like so much. Maybe being patient with yourself doesn't mean accepting that this is your best work. Maybe it means accepting that this isn't and that it will take time, knowledge, and practice to get there. But you will, you just have to keep trying.

[luthienne]

Natasha Trethewey, from Thrall: Poems; "Mythology"

[becomingvecna]

❝ I will not have you without the darkness that hides within you. I will not let you have me without the madness that makes me. If our demons cannot dance, neither can we. ❞

— Nikita Gill